


The Place of Dead Roads

by terma_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-01
Updated: 1999-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26501371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terma_archivist/pseuds/terma_archivist
Summary: Kurt Cobain sez: "Where do bad folks go when they die. They don't go to heaven where the angels fly. They go to a lake of fire and fry..."
Relationships: Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder
Kudos: 1
Collections: TER/MA





	The Place of Dead Roads

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [TER/MA](https://fanlore.org/wiki/TER/MA) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the TER/MA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/terma/profile).  
> Warning: BLEAK. Read the title and the summary for further hints. Death story

  
**The Place of Dead Roads  
by The Spike**

  
It was Scully who took him down and that was strangely right. Scully in her ghost gray skirt, cream silk blouse untucked and little drops of blood like rubies or maybe garnets down the front. Scully, her face damp from running, eyes silvered with tears. Clouds of steam from her breath, his breath, mist across his vision. 

"Krycek, _stop_!" 

Scully. Something endearing about the little red-headed pitbull bitch. The way she'd hunted him down after he'd killed the thing that used to be Fox Mulder. He almost wanted to cheer her on. Slap her on the back. Good job, Special Agent Scully. Or... just 'Scully' now. Christ, she deserved _something_ for it. 

And so he'd stopped, stumble-stopped in the brief moonlit flash of clearing. Stopped and turned to find her, Dana Scully, two-fisted stance—the barrel of the gun aimed right at him—as big as her eye, as big as the moon. Opened his mouth to say something. 

And... 

He saw her finger jerk on the trigger, saw her mouth fall open, _saw_ the bullet spiral out at him. Heard the crack. He'd laughed. 

And even though it was all moving so slow, he was moving slower. Like he and that bullet were meant for each other from the start and there was nothing, no force strong enough in nature to deflect either one of them. 

He felt the bullet tap him in the side of the head, not even hard but it spun him. Then he was on the ground, face down in the cold leaves, cold muck. Damn, he hated the cold. And Mulder was there. Back behind his shoulder, just out of sight. Just out of reach. 

//Hey, Mulder,// he wanted to say. //Long time no...// But he was too far back behind his eyes and suddenly there was so _much_ to have said. So much to have done. And all of it slipping away so fucking fast, pooling into warmth under his cheek and damn, he hadn't expected there to be regrets. His eyes still open, milking over gray as the world receded. 

And there were Dana Scully's little shoes. How fucking _sweet_. 

And then, he supposed, he died. 

* * *

In fact he's sure of it because now things are weird in that nightmare way that he's sure must be the afterlife. Maybe... hell. Which, after what he's seen, known, almost makes him laugh. Nice rest after a life like his. No aliens spewing green goo, no black oil up his ass, no knife wielding peasants, no burning boys. Not even screaming souls or burning lakes or pricks with pitchforks, just weirdness. Weirdness of a fundamental self-kind—wandering and forgetting. Drifting like mist. Maybe no more than a floating point of view. For a long time, nothing, but something's changing. Something's going to happen now. 

He knows this because when he's 'Alex Krycek' he is _here_. Not the dark and pretty woods where he died, but here, this gutted, smoking ruin of a building where he really died. Where his soul died with the slam of a pointed spike to the sweet spot of the Mulderthing's neck. 

"Pretty fucking poetic for a lying lowlife scumbag," says Mulder. Krycek looks up from where he's been squatting, rubbing his hands together over a little pile of stones as though it were a fire. There's no one there and for a moment he is lost. He looks at his hands, they're clean and cold and there is something else but he can't remember. 

"Mulder?" he asks the empty, gray air. His voice is harsh, echoless. "Mulder?" 

Nothing. 

Just another ghost. Mulder's voice. That flat, amused sound. Fuck, he's missed it. Has always missed it. Craved the sound of it— even when it was just the Mulderthing playing his own thoughts against him: 

//Want you, Alex. Need you...// Skin crawling at the _wrongness_ of it. Never mind that the voice sounded right. Mulder didn't. Wouldn't. 

//Need you, Alex... Lo—// And the torque and balance as he'd spun it by its arm—, the pop of gristle and bone, steel in his hand and _slam_. 

Knowing it was right—was _right_ —but when the thing had looked up at him with those dead black eyes, he'd felt nothing but relief. 

He can almost smell the acid stench; can feel the remembered impact tingling in his funny bone. He rubs the place absently, closes his eyes on grit. 

"You feeling sorry for yourself, Krycek?" 

And this time when he looks up Mulder _is_ there. Wearing white linen robes with long long sleeves and buckles. Squatting across from him. Eyes clear. Looking healthy. Looking fucking _good_. 

"This isn't about me killing what was left of you," Krycek says. 

"No?" Mulder is smiling. Beautiful splay of crow's feet. Laugh lines. Mulder's laughing and, just like always it pisses Krycek off. 

"You going to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Krycek says. "Are you here to haunt me like some fucking boogedy boogedy?" 

"You scared, Krycek?" He goes to say, no, he isn't fucking scared of fucking dead FBI agents. He isn't fucking scared of ghosts. It's always been the truth except... his heart is pounding away in his chest like he's alive or something and it _does_ scare him. Fucking cold-sweat, bowels-turn-to-water terrifies him. His teeth are chattering so he jams them together. 

"What are the rules here, Mulder?" he asks, low and still hearing the fear in his own voice. And Mulder laughs again. Big laugh and at the same time he's moving in, slow low tackle and just like the bullet that killed him Krycek can't get out of the way. Can only fight it— grapples Mulder, grunts and kicks out but Mulder weighs about a thousand pounds. Like he's made of solid steel under the flesh. Not even sweating and Krycek ends up on his back in the rubble and dead, dry leaves, Mulder straddling him, pinning his wrists. 

Heat to heat where their bodies join under the white flow of Mulder's skirts. Heat where Mulder's weight is grinding down on him. Mulder's face inches from his own and he can feel their pulsebeats shaking them, he can smell Mulder's sweat, his own. He's shaking, fucking _shaking_. Looking up into Mulder's eyes. Eyes that see him. Know him. Looking at him with so much compassion. Understanding. 

// _Fuck_ no.// 

Love. 

"Bastard," Krycek growls. "Cocksucker." 

"Just say the word," Mulder says. Krycek shakes his head but Mulder's mouth comes down, stops just beside his mouth. He can feel, taste 

Mulder's soft hot breath on his lips. But he _knows_... 

//It isn't real. It couldn't _ever_ be real...// 

Long time passes like that. Maybe centuries. Maybe... 

Sometimes Mulder is there on top of him, sometimes he's gone but it's always Krycek lying on his back, staring up into pale grayness that he can never see as anything but sky. 

And, Christ, it hurts to be this afraid and still not even know for sure it's hell. 

* * *

"You laugh? You don't believe in the devil? Disbelief in the devil is a French idea, a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do you know his name? Without even knowing his name, you laugh at the form of him, following Voltaire's example, at his hoofs, at his tail, at his horns, which you have invented; for the evil spirit is a mighty menacing spirit, but he has not the hoofs and horns you've invented for him."—Fyodor Dostoevsky, _The Idiot_

  
"Is a poisonous snake really safer?"   
"Not really in the long run, but who cares about that? He must feel real good after he bites someone."   
"Safer?"   
"Yes sir. Dead people are less frightening than live ones. It's a step in the right direction."   
"Young man, I think you're an assassin." 

—William S. Burroughs, _The Place of Dead Roads_

* * *

9/99  
Summary: Kurt Cobain sez: "Where do bad folks go when they die. They don't go to heaven where the angels fly. They go to a lake of fire and fry..."   
HINT: Death story.   
Spoilers: implied to the end of Season 6, I guess and then waaaaay AU,   
Rating: NC-17   
Warning: BLEAK. Read the title and the summary for further hints.   
Disclaimer: Fox, Chris Carter, X-Files, yadda yadda   
Notes: This came out of a mini-challenge elsewhere. Thanks to Te,   
Laura, Jessica and especially Ladonna—and no blame should attach to them if it still doesn't make much sense.   
---


End file.
